My first job in high school began as an internship at a small shop in Nevada that made costumes, wedding gowns and casino uniforms. I fell in love with a Brother single needle industrial machine whose push-button start up and whining motor stood my arm hair on end. I was also smitten with the gravity fed industrial steam iron (I once forgot to turn it off and left it smoldering on the ironing board...overnight). Loading cones and rethreading a 5-thread serger with its zig-zagging internal paths became as navigable as learning to drive a car -- which happened at around the same time -- and for a girl whose father worked with loud equipment and flying sparks all day, yet kept his daughters safe from this, it was a way to harness industrial energy and wield power over a machine at a moment in life when a young woman is vulnerable to dismissing her own capabilities.

That was all the fun stuff (except maybe the casino uniforms), but the bread and butter work in that shop were the alterations. I've hemmed more Carole Little knit pants from Macy's than I care to count, and learned to make way more small talk in a fitting room than any other 17-year old I've ever met (I'm still not great at it, but I can probably still make a half-naked lady feel pretty comfortable. Wow, except that came out wrong).

To rip into another person's worn clothing has an intimacy rivaled by actually making clothing and fitting a person's body. I've found used tissues in pockets (into the garbage), money and jewelry and keys (into the small return baggie) and seams filled with dust, lint and scales of skin. I've been gagged by cologne and perfume and cigarette smoke. A woman once delivered several vests to be copied and remade, only to discover that her male cat had sprayed on them just that morning. She tried to leave them anyway, and when I explained there was no way I could hand them over to the woman who does the alterations (me) before dry cleaning (her), she snorted and craned her neck to see who this picky "alterations girl" in the back room might be.

During the 12 years I was in the clothing industry, doing everything from alterations, to running a commercial cutter, to fitting custom gowns, to sample sewing PVC raincoats/stretch jeans/metallic halter tops for 14-year olds, to marching to the bank to try and deposit paychecks (9 of those bounced at one factory), to making patterns, to crying on the bus, to finally being mentored by a master tailor for 4 years in the '90s (more crying), the constant hum for me was the intimacy of cloth. And the years that this intimacy was absent (factory work), it bothered me that clothing was so disposable. Later in my career, when returning to custom made wedding gowns, I thought I'd be creating garments that would be revered.

Some were. Most of the clients were lovely women. And I try really hard to remember their smiles, vast embraces and impossibly smooth shoulders.

But the fond memories are often overshadowed by mothers telling daughters how fat they looked, or girls bad mouthing the size of an absent friend's ring ("...you know that marriage won't last... "), or bridesmaids who (I'm not kidding) pushed each other out of the way to vie for the mirrored walls, the ruined gowns returned for fixing ("... we got such a great photo in the hotel fountain!"). It's comical now. But for a girl from a small town, brought up to sew and respect the work of the hand, it was devastating. My last boss, a mentor and man I respected and loved like a father, called me "Provincial." The hardest part was realizing my own lack of skill when it came to matching wits with princesses.

For Pete's sake, who even knew that was a thing?​

All this to say: alterations don't bother me. Neither does the prospect of incredibly time-consuming work.(And I steer clear of Princesses).​

Girl Story and Girl Story #3 have been accepted into Focus: Fiber 2016 at Kent State University Museum. If you are in Ohio between February 12 and July 3, 2016 I highly encourage you to check out the exhibition (and send pictures please, because I won't get down there for this one, unfortunately).​

​One of the notations in the exhibition agreement stated, "Velcro is preferred but not mandatory." A few months ago, I met with the textile curator at the Anchorage Museum and she had mentioned this very thing in terms of displaying tapestries and textile work.

Velcro.

​So I ripped off the sleeves.​

Adding velcro to a piece and the accompanying mounting bar is easily reversible, protects the fabric and will eliminate curling and bulging at the bottom edge once installed by allowing for minuscule adjustments at the top until the piece hangs straight across the bottom.

So while I didn't have to make this alteration to two pieces of artwork before shipping, I chose to.​

"When we mount quilts, we use 2" velcro stitched by machine to a muslin strip. The muslin strip is then hand sewn - carefully and lightly - to the quilt backing so that no stitches or muslin show. Put the soft side of the velcro on the strip sewn to the quilt and staple the hard side to a 1" x 2" piece of poplar. 2" velcro gives us a better chance to get the piece hanging straight since most quilts are not perfectly square."

​ Jean Druesedow, Director Kent State University Museum

If making clothing for people taught me anything, it's this: there is no one way. Every body is different, every mind is different.

Every show is different.

(But darn it if male cat pee is always the same).

I'd love to hear your comments about successful mounting/hanging techniques. I'd also love to hear what went terribly wrong so we can all learn from each other.

This post is filed under the How To category in the side bar. There are a few other how to posts available there, although I'll never walk you through anything by blah, blah, yaddah-yaddah because there are lots of other verbose bloggers out there breaking sewing steps down. I know you're on your game, so I show you lots of pictures instead.

Confession: I used a fusible label, and also fused a hanging sleeve onto a small 8.5" x 9" fabric collage. I have never done so before. I reasoned with myself that it was not something that would be washed and the person who bought the piece knows it was a sample. Risky: Yes, because it was super easy and it looks good.

Susan,
Oh man, I love a confession! I also love it when things look good and are really clean and simple, so hey, in the spirit of there's no "one way" to do anything -- I like it. Also, you've sold the work, which is even better!!
XO
Amy

I think sleeves and velcro mounts fall into the same category as hemming a wedding gown by hand. It's the last damn thing that HAS to get done properly, but it's the least exciting. Did I mention it's always done at warp speed because of a deadline? There's that bit of misery, too.
Thanks for reading and commenting and commiserating!
XO
Amy
ps: Bozena, I've been trying to reply to your comment several times here and it keeps bouncing back. If you've received multiple versions of this comment in your inbox, I apologize. :(

This is the first I have heard of the Velcro hanging method. Although I imagine it works well when executed carefully by the gallery, I dread to think of all the ways it can go wrong. Mind you, I have seen horrid displays with any kind of hanging method, and a fellow blogger told me she had seen a quilt of mine simply draped over a small plinth in one venue on a touring schedule.
I love reading about your life exploits - how well you put your experiences. My own dressmaking experiences are either from home, or from my annual summer visits to relatives in Greece. There my mother and I always went to the same dressmaker, Soula, who made all my aunts' and my grandmother's clothes - even their underwear, including the great pink engineering constructions which were their bras. She would give us a discount off an already ridiculously low price if we took fashion magazines to her. That was in the 50s and 60s; by the 70s she was ahead of us with the latest trends. She worked all the hours for a pittance, but I was delighted to hear a few years back from my cousin who still keeps in touch with her, that Soula oversees a flourishing design business making sought-after clothes which my cousin cannot afford.

Olga,
Once these things are out of our hands, so, so many things can go wrong -- I've had wooden slats split, epoxied hooks on metal slats pop off...I'm still trying to come up with a fool-proof method, a real no-brainer for whomever installs my work, but so far it's been hit and miss. So when someone goes so far as to tell me exactly what they want, I'm willing to acquiesce.

I would love to meet this Soula of yours. I bet she's a real firecracker to have such staying power in the industry. I love hearing how you describe her and I picture her as someone very passionate for her work.
XO
Amy

Reply

Lynn Rogers

1/31/2016 03:56:44 am

"..matching wits with princesses.." a good laugh for me this early morning! Love your work Amy, and your writing is excellent too. Thanks for your thoughtful insights!

I think the velcro idea to hang quilts is right up there with the "best of'" inventions. For some reason seeing quilts hanging on a pole, with that long tunnel-y lumpy area at the top of a quilt is offensive to me!

But then I don't mind stabbing my small fabric-y bits with pins to hang them on all my walls!

[my husband decided that putting up foam insulation panels, covered in ecru colored sheets, canvas, etc, was far better than the thousands of holes in sheet-rock I would surely have made.] Many pix of my "walls" throughout my blog.

Vicky,
I, too, have a husband willing to install large panels for design wall work (we used hushboard wrapped in white felt). I have yet to show a quilt with the pipe and drape set up, but it's probably in my future....I'll have to rip off and re-do the sleeve if so. Again. Sigh.
XO
Amy

Anita Joy,
Oh you do not live beneath a rock, nor in an ivory tower, nor are you a witless princess! As I have the opportunity to install both mine and others' work, I'm learning so much. While I'm sure there are folks who are old hats at this, the majority of us aren't involved in the actual installation and I think knowing many different techniques and time-saving tips will help us all become more professional and savvy in the eyes of the art/gallery world.
Thank you for reading!
Amy

Reply

Leave a Reply.

Amy Meissner

Artist in Anchorage, Alaska, sometimes blogging about the collision of history, family & art, with the understanding that none exists without the other.​